Social Media Has Been Sent to Us to Save Marketing

The other day, somebody showed me an article along the lines that you couldn’t organically distribute content on Facebook without using ads.

Now we all know that what drives Facebook is ad revenues, so they will be delighted if you buy ads on the platform.

But, take a look at the author of the article and guess what? The person writing it sells Facebook ads. No surprise really.

So, what has this got to do with athletics?

Being an athlete in today’s world is difficult. All that training, eating the right diet, training the mind to be a winner, high altitude training and sleeping in an oxygen tent. Many people don’t make it, either through injury or they let their attention slip. This is hard work and takes dedication.

Of course, there is a quick and easy way or may be an easier way, that is to take some performance enhancement drugs. It’s cheating, but if you want you can take that route and not do the hard work. You might not be caught. Why not have that ice-cream, you deserved it?

Advertising was invented in the 1930s. No internet, no access to a wealth of information. The concept is simple, you interrupt somebody and broadcast them your message. “We are great”, “we are great”, “we are great”, to the point where it’s just noise.

And in the 1930s it was actually useful as you found out about products you didn’t know about before.

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

Fast forward to 2018 and here we have an influencer and guru telling you to buy 1930s technology just to line their own pockets. As Johnny Rotten said, “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”.

Now there are ways and means of distributing content organically on Facebook, but why bother with the hard work? Let’s take the doping option and interrupt people! Annoy them, rather than let them find you, stoke their curiosity, and educate and inspire them!

Social media has been sent to us to save marketing. It’s social on media, it allows us to have a conversation with our customers and prospects. Having conversations is something that humans like and are actually quite good at.

I’m writing this on a flight to the US and through the airport I’ve had snippets of conversations with people, “where are you travelling to?”, “have you travelled far?” we gain knowledge and insight from people. It’s free and to use the recent term, “friction free”.

But advertising, isn’t a conversation, it’s shouting. It’s broadcasting. It’s not social, while it might be on digital media. Which is why people often think advertising is social media. It isn’t. Social media is not advertising, and advertising is not social media.